Atomistic Analysis of Thermoelectric Properties of Silicon Nanowires

Electron and phonon transport in silicon nanowires: Atomistic approach to thermoelectric properties

Full-Band Calculations of Thermoelectric Properties of Si Nanowires and Thin Layers

Low-dimensional semiconductors are considered promising candidates for thermoelectric applications with enhanced performance because of a drastic reduction in their thermal conductivity, κl, and possibilities of enhanced power factors. This is also the case for traditionally poor thermoelectric materials such as silicon. This work presents atomistic simulations for the electronic, thermal, and ...

Thermoelectric Properties of Scaled Silicon Nanostructures Using the spds*-SO Atomistic Tight-Binding Model

The progress in the synthesis of nanomaterials allows the realization of low-dimensional thermoelectric devices based on 1D nanowires (NWs) and 2D superlattices. These confined systems offer the possibility of partially engineering the electronic and phononic dispersions and scattering mechanisms. Thus, the electrical and thermal conductivity, and the Seebeck coefficient can be designed to some...

Analysis of Thermoelectric Properties of Scaled Silicon Nanowires Using an Atomistic Tight-Binding Model

Low-dimensional materials provide the possibility of improved thermoelectric performance due to the additional length scale degree of freedom for engineering their electronic and thermal properties. As a result of suppressed phonon conduction, large improvements in the thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT, have recently been reported in nanostructures, compared to the raw materials. In addition, ...

Surface-decorated silicon nanowires: a route to high-ZT thermoelectrics.

Based on atomistic calculations of electron and phonon transport, we propose to use surface-decorated silicon nanowires for thermoelectric applications. Two examples of surface decorations are studied to illustrate the underlying ideas: nanotrees and alkyl functionalized silicon nanowires. For both systems we find (i) that the phonon conductance is significantly reduced compared to the electron...